You Are My Only Worth
by hungrytiger11
Summary: One afternoon. Four views. And the ghost that haunts them all. Hyuuga-centric.


You are My Only Worth

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto nor any related content, characters etc. No profit is being made.

_"You are Kounichi, Hina-chan. Facing the enemy in battle is nothing. There are enemy at your door and in your bed."_

She is ridiculously small next to him, small to the point he almost feels awkward, especially when she doesn't turn. Her back is to him despite barely an inch separating them. There's no way a person could not notice someone so close, so why doesn't she turn?

He murmurs her name and brushes her arm, forcing her to acknowledge him. He was particularly hard in her training today, and, as she turns, he sees sweaty hair clings to her forehead.

Her fingers curling against his hand are his first indication he's made a move at all. Stopped in the middle of brushing her hair back, his hand hangs in the air as she questions, "Neji?" honorific-less and unsure.

A pause, and then he finishes the motion he started, watching her eyes. Hyuuga eyes supposedly are hard to read, but today is the first time Neji is unsure what to make of Hinata's softly violet eyes. Something hesitant and hurt lingers there. He hesitates to name what he sees. If he gives it a name, that name would have to be fear.

Or rejection. And that is the last thing he wants.

Her head is whipping down in a bow before he can pin her with a question, ask her what those looks mean. Then she is scrambling across the room and out the door. He never even has a chance to move.

_"You are Hyuuga, Hina-chan. Learn how not to see. It is how you will survive."_

Standing by his office window, Hiashi thinks he knows that look. Elsewhere, he has seen the look his daughter showed just now. The real issue is not the look, nor even what it means, but Neji and his actions and what they mean.

He would not say that Hinata was totally out of the running to inherit. For three years now he has watched as Neji takes his eldest daughter to train. But though he no longer wonders if she will make it as a ninja, he also does not think his other daughter is any less likely a candidate for heir. And neither is as good as his nephew, who stands alone in the training yard, staring at his hand.

As cousins, the relationship is close, but Hyuuga rarely married outside the clan. No. The question is not about that look, but the blood. Are they _too_ closely related, or just closely enough? Hiashi can ignore such looks in his daughter's eyes; he had ignored them in her mother's when he courted her. But would being blind save the clan, and give them a leader to follow after him? Would thick blood prove true? And, he almost hesitates to even think it but does nonetheless, would it repay the debt owed to his brother? He does not know for sure, but the possibility is there.

_"You are my daughter, Hina-chan. Do not look to be happy."_

The door slamming shut is the final distraction for Hanabi, who should be studying for a test at the academy tomorrow, but books are boring. Mysteries are not.

Sliding her own door open, she can see the only door in the hallway that is closed belongs to Hinata-niisan. Byakugan is not to be used in the house, but Hanabi never liked rules much anyway. After activating her charka though, she thinks perhaps she should follow the rules more often.

Hanabi has never seen her sister cry. Thus, to her knowledge, Hinata never has. When she is upset though, her sister curls against the walls in her room and reads journals their mother left. Hanabi has never read them, though she suspects they are mostly about old gardens. Or she wants to think they are about something so dull. She wouldn't be missing anything that way. Hinata is protective of their mother's work, and the one time Hanabi tried to sneak a look, Hinata snarled at her, "You have our mother's face; let me have her words, Hana-chan!"

She would rather have a face of her own than be the ghost her father and sister occasionally see, but at the time she bit back the retort. And she's never tried to look at the journals again either, but now, she had no idea what comfort her mother could be whispering. Hinata was the type who was so quiet you never knew she was there till you saw what was missing when she was gone. And even if she was in her room, for the rest of the night at least, she was missing as far as Hanabi was concerned. Damn. Hinata had promised to quiz her for the stupid test too, and now that wouldn't be.

Carefully, Hanabi uses the Byakugan to find who has taken her sister's thoughts tonight. Nothing unusual seems to be happening. Her father is pausing in his work, looking out his study window. Old uncles play shoji in the main room, and her grandfather is with them. One auntie is preparing dinner, muttering under her breath. Hinata usually helps, and today Auntie is working alone. In the courtyard Neji is also alone, furiously throwing himself into target practice. On Tuesdays, he is usually there training Hinata. Odd. But, after that one chuunin exam, if Neji were the one hurting Hinata, they would know.

Wouldn't they?

Sighing, Hanabi gets up and knocks on her sister's door. Her sister always said talking about troubles made them smaller, and perhaps today, Hinata would tell her some of what their mother would say if she wasn't dead.

_"You are your father's daughter, Hina-chan. Do not hope for love."_

Most of the journal is about gardens. Occasionally there are bits about pasted-in photos, and, once or twice, something about a young woman's memories. The entire journal is written in the same hand, expect for the last page. There is little on that last page, only five sentences written in a child's jerky hand. Such writing had once been her own. Written down are her mother's last words to her.

Fever, made fatal by complications of her sister's birth, had taken Hinata's mother. But it had taken her slowly, over the course of thirty-eight hours, and her mother had fallen in and out of consciousness. Dying, the clan head's wife had said things on and off to her husband, who was sometimes there and sometime not, and to her own mother, who had died the winter before, and to her daughter, who was sitting by the mother's bed. Hinata had only known what was being said was directed to her, because, each time, her mother addressed her by name. She had left a complicated guide to how Hinata must survive.

Because of this last page, Hinata pushes the book into a corner, when she hears a knock at the door. Opening it, she is both relieved and annoyed to see it is only her sister, asking to be quizzed for some all-important test. That's about the last thing she wants to do right now, but still. It is her sister. How can she say no?

The whole time she and her sister sit sprawled on the floor, reviewing Kohona's history, Hinata is waiting. Part of her wants Neji, to appear at her door, to explain what on earth he had been thinking. Because what she saw scared her. It went against the rules her mother had laid down. His actions said her mother could be wrong.

A part of her wants to say she is being silly. It could have been a brotherly act, a teacherly act even. Nothing more. But the possibility of more had been so thick in the air, that Hinata is surprised neither one of them choked from lack of oxygen. The possibility of more had been in his hands, in his eyes, in the way he hadn't followed when she had run.

Loving Naruto was easy because he would never love her back. He was blind to her affection and that was only to be expected. He had no Byakugan to see with. Neji is different though. Through his eyes, she is clearly seen.

All her life, her mother had steered her right. Thanks to her last advice, there was nothing to be surprised at in her father's actions, in Neji's hatred, or even in her sensei's and teammates' incomprehension at how the Hyuuga worked. Still, Hanabi is here, in this room with her, obstinately studying, though she knows her Kohona history backward and forward by now. It is how she shows a quiet sister her love, oddly enough. Even Hinata can see this action for what it is. If, in this measure such as it is, Hinata could be loved, did that prove the rules wrong, anyway?

Neji is so good at proving people wrong. He proved the whole clan wrong about main and branch houses, after all. Was he proving her dead mother wrong at last, after all these years she'd been right? And more important, did she want him to? For that Hinata can find no answers. Not in her mother's journals, nor in her own heart. There was no easy way to accept what had never been spoken, but was offered all the same. Maybe next Tuesday's training session would give her more, enough to erase a mother's love. Enough to free them both of something she had never considered to be a cage.

_"Hina-chan, you are my only worth, the one thing I did right. Never forget whose daughter you were." _


End file.
